Tuesday 22 November 2016
WELCOME TO DEVON
This morning Jo Olsson, our Chief Officer for Children's
Services, and Cllr James McInnes, Lead Member for Children and Families,
welcomed the SEND peer review team, consisting of Margaret Mulholland,
Andy Lawrence, Linda Williams, and Chris Baird.
The team will spend the next
four days working through a packed itinerary of visits to schools, health
settings and meeting children and families who use our services, before giving
us their final feedback on Friday.
In her introduction, Jo Olsson
said: "This is an important piece of work, which has come at the
right time. It enables us to stock take and set out a road map for the
next phase with renewed energy and vigour."
The review will focus both on
the current strengths of the SEND process in Devon, and the areas on which we
need to focus our efforts, both collectively and individually, over the coming
months. We have already identified some of these through our self
assessment, and these were presented to inspectors in this morning's
presentation. See the presentation here.
Lead Peer Chris Baird,
said: "We've been made to feel very welcome, and there is a good
range of visits planned for us. It seems very well organised, and I'd
like to thank everyone involved.
"This is the first LGA-led
peer review of SEND, which has brought together people with a range of
expertise, and as a new team, we're looking forward to learning from our
experience in Devon."
Today's itinerary
Today (Tuesday) Peers will meet with a Parent Carer Forum focus
group, Head of Children's Social Care Vivien Lines, the 0-25 SEND team, Cllr
James McInnes, a Preparing for Adulthood focus group, SEND leads from Babcock,
a Looked After Children focus group, An Early Help focus group, a SENCO focus
group, a Further Education Forum, the Children's Social Care focus group, and
with Education and Learning Head Dawn Stabb and SEN Strategy Manager Julia
Foster; and Head of Adult Social Care Keri Storey.
Coming up...
Tomorrow will see Peers visiting other sites including Pathfield
School, Newton Abbot Children's Centre and Highweek School, St Petroc College,
South Dartmoor Community College in Ashburton and Sticklepath Children's Centre
and St Andrew's Pre-School in Barnstaple.
Feedback
We will keep you
updated on feedback through this Inspection Daily bulletin. If you have
any feedback on the Peer Review please e-mail childrenfamiliesalliance-mailbox@devon.gov.uk
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